A reader explains why he was driven to download a pirate copy of Valiant Hearts, and why he might choose to do the same again.

Today I illegally downloaded and played a pirated copy of a game.

The release of Valiant Hearts happened to fall on the same day as my partner’s birthday. She’d been hugely looking forward to the game as both a fan of World War history and the UbiArt Framework. We bought the game before release on Steam and patiently waited as the game downloaded and installed. We sat on the sofa with the controller in her hands, extra large bag of Malteasers in mine, and clicked play. Nothing happened.

Steam assured me that it was a problem with Ubisoft’s Uplay system and after some digging around on the Internet that did indeed seem to be the problem. I made sure all my drivers and software were up to date before contacting them. I wrote on their forums and sent numerous emails with no response. A member of Ubisoft’s support team had commented on another thread belonging to a person having similar issues and recommended deleting Uplay all together and starting again. Doing this led to another problem – it wouldn’t let me log in or use offline mode.

I tried every combination of email addresses and passwords I’d ever used and nothing worked. Asking for a password reminder never worked either as the emails never came. I decided to just make a new account so I can log in and try to play again. Finally logged in and this time when I click play it says, ‘This game has already been activated with a different account’. Great! DRM!

I gave up. Her birthday plans had already been ruined because of it and I was getting no response from anyone at Ubisoft. I was going to do something drastic. I was going to download a pirated version.

Some clever chap had got the game to under 700MB and it took about ninety minutes to download, much faster than it had on Steam. Double-clicked on the set-up file and the game briskly installed. We got another bag of Malteasers out of the cupboard and hit play. Within seconds the glorious UbiArt graphics filled our screen and the wonderful soundtrack poured from our speakers. No Steam, no Uplay, no DRM, no cracking/patching, no fuss. No cost!

I felt bad about it, but why? After all, I’d already paid for it so there was no sale loss. My friend habitually pirates games and has always said the reason he did was because it was easier. I just always thought it was because he was a bit of a thief, but now I can see that maybe he’s right.

I’m not in anyway advocating piracy. I always have and will always continue to pay for everything I play (whether I’ve enjoyed it or not) because I love this industry and want to support it as much as possible. My partner loved the game and rated it a highly respectable 8.5/10 (the extra .5 is for the puppy, apparently). However, publishers need to realise that something needs to change. Not only is piracy cheaper, it’s also a better service.

I bought Far Cry 3, another Ubisoft title, on the same day and had exactly the same problem with that game as well. I might pirate that too.

By reader Daniel Savage

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.